Did anyone ever play Poleconomy? Was it even half as confusing or unspeakably boring as it looks and sounds?
Seriously, even the commercial can’t make it look exciting, and that’s its one job!
And I realize that this may not be the exact description that was packaged with the game, but could you make it any more off putting?
The game reflects the way Government, finance and industry interact when private enterprise operates within a system of parliamentary democracy. Players try to become both tycoons and politicians to gain both political and financial power.
As a tycoon the players buy and sell UK corporations and brand products, invest in insurance, buy bonds, and bid takeovers. They face inflation and commercial disaster. Profits are taxed by the Government.
As a politician and member of Parliament, they try to move from Opposition to member of Government, and then Prime Minister through the election process. Decisions as Prime Minister will affect the financial position of all on the board!
Families were supposed to play this! I don’t know what families, but that was the idea. Maybe families for whom the excitement of regular Monopoly was just too much.
Wikipedia makes it sound even worse, if you can imagine such a thing. In their description, the rules have a very strong do whatever the hell you want vibe to them.
Players compete to acquire properties and investments through stylized economic and political activity. This involves the purchase of real-world companies and advertising using artificial money. The players take turns moving around the board via the roll of the dice, landing on the gameboard squares and carrying out instruction according to the square’s contents or player decision.
The game is unusual in its mirroring of real-world businesses for which it has licenses to use their trademarks. It also illustrates how political events such as government decisions and taxation affect the economy. The players take turns at being the Prime Minister or President through elections. Once in power they have the ability to dictate the levels of inflation and so increasing or decreasing rents for property owners. If a player cannot cover their rent, the debt is written off and they can continue, receiving a government salary; no-one becomes bankrupt. According to the rules the game ends when the central bank runs out of money.
Either the bank runs out of money, or you can just decide before you even start when you’re going to have had enough.
The playing time is set by agreement from all players, e.g. 2 hours, and the winner is determined by the monetary sum of all player cash, companies, insurance or other assets.
Two hours? I give it 20 minutes tops.
Maybe this would be fun in school for a little while, but as a family game night it has disaster written all over it. A boring ass game where you can choose whether or not you want to follow the instructions and where one person has more power than everyone else just cannot end well.